Farthest of the "Far Left"
Smart Growth...Comprehensive Planning... Call it what you want, every local government should plan for the future.
Can anyone name a successful business that doesn't plan for the future? Their plans change over time, but they at least have a vision of where they want their business to be somewhere down the line. Local governments need to do the same.
It is what that vision is that becomes the sticking point. Example? Madison, Wisconsin.
Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk, County Board Chairman Scott McDonell and the "progressive " majority on the County Board advocate the "New Urbanism " of high density housing controlled not locally, but by the county.
Do the following New Urbanism-like statements sound familiar?
"Suburbs are chaotic and depressing agglomeration of buildings covering enormous stretches of land. "
Mixed-use developments, as opposed to single family homes, "allow easy access to public functions and services -- day care, restaurants, parks . . . transportation. "
"High-rise housing is more equitable, promotes a sense of community and should be the primary unit " of housing.
"High-density housing will allow easy access to public transportation, " which is better than private transport that has "produced an overwhelming set of unresolved problems. "
The "economic advantages of public transit for getting commuters to and from work areas are obvious and an answer to congestion. "
All of these statements are from the book "The Ideal Communist City, " written by the planners at the University of Moscow in 1965. See Randal O'Toole's book "Best Laid Plans," 2007, p. 171.
The Soviet Union went on to build these filing cabinet " apartments at a density of 70,000 people per square mile in Moscow (higher than Manhattan). These apartments and similar ones in the former Communist East Germany have now mostly been vacated, abandoned and torn down, much like the ill advised "Urban Renewal " and "planned community " high-rise apartments built by the federal government from the 1950s to the 1970s. Those in Chicago and St. Louis became so crime-ridden, residency fell to 35 percent before they were finally demolished -- again using federal grants to do so.
The point: Top-down planning by the Central Committee, the Politburo, the Capitol Area Regional Planning Commission and our Dane County Board does not work. It worked in a totalitarian, brutally-controlled socialist society only as long as the inhabitants had no freedom of choice.
County leaders exhibit an appalling lack of trust in our free-market system that has created the greatest and richest country in the world. They have disturbing disdain for local control of zoning. They dismiss the judgment and intelligence of their own neighbors, citizens, farmers, businessmen, developers, village and town councils in Dane County.
It ain't called the People's Republic of Madison for nothing.
Al Arnold
1 Comment
Reader Comments (1)
I agree. Falk's vision is over the top.
The sad truth, however, is that our entire infrastructure is based upon the individual automobile and, if gasoline becomes scarce, nonexistent or too costly, we will gravitate to a more urban environment out of necessity. It reminds me of turn-of-the-century (19th to 20th) urbanization and the growth of the industrial era where people left the farms and congregated in cities. The same thing may happen simply because "sprawl" is no longer a viable option...sprawl only works with cheap gas and plenty of government-owned freeways to make commuting possible. If you eliminate any part of the equation: VIOLA! instant urbanization!
sky